Forum:Fallout: Apprentice Discussion
Hi Folks, This thread is for Fallout Apprentice discussion, challenge clarifications, and other questions. Its primarily for contestants, but if there are any questions from the floor, I'm happy to talk them as well. I recommend rechecking this forum to see if there are any updates before deciding that your entry is complete. Agent c (talk) 02:33, March 3, 2013 (UTC) Contest notes *Please ensure you include the "Disclaimer" box (the one that says its a Fallout Apprentice entry) at the top of any item (just as yuo either did last year, or in the Qualifier) *Please ensure your items are posted as a blog (to allow comments). *Do not include any other categories other than "Blog posts", and "Fallout Apprentice 2013". *Please make sure any ideas are your own; assistance for wikicode can be provided, as long as you know the effect you're looking for first. *Please email nukapedia@gmail.com to ensure you get early access to the next challenge. Challenge 1 I had a couple of questions mailed in, and will relay them here for everyone. #Do we submit part 1 & wait for approval before posting part 2 ? #"The guys have also had a bit of writers block when it comes to adding new skills/abilities, or new ways to use old skills. They agree its important that this location have some challenge that cannot be bypassed by the abilities (or the way abilities are used) in Fallout 3/New Vegas and have left this to you to figure out. " I take this to mean you want a new skill, ability and or perk pluse an alternative path ? #Design ability (It may use an existing or new Skill/SPECIAL attribute and/or item , or you may create a new skill, it may also be a feature that returns from an older fallout game) and a challenge for it to overcome (to teach the player how to use it.) (Abilities include lock picking, hacking, ect. "End quote 2" :When you speak about creatig a new skill dose that include Perks, or do you mean just like small guns, ect ? *4. Does it needs to be a place/ quest, that the player must do to advance in the story, or can it also be the kind, that most players will stumble upon in early game? *5.Is it allowed to ask other people (members of the wikia) for quality checks and their opinion before entering ones creation to the contest or will this be considered as using ideas of others? ----- 1. You should do both parts now and have them both complete for the deadline. 2. You don't necessarily need to add a new skill, we're looking for a new "ability"... Abilities are things like "Hacking", "Lockpicking" and "Crafting". You;re likely to want to link it to something (e.g.- Hacking is linked to Science, Lockpick is linked to Lockpick, Gambling is linked to Luck in FNV). The thing you link it to can be something new, or something old. The ability must be used to bypass an obstacle not passable by any other means, the obsticle is there to teach the player how to pass it using that ability 3.A perk is probably a bad choice for this, as perks are optional. 4. It either should be manditory, or strongly pushed to that location. Remember the place that this "dungeon" fits is to teach the player the hacking/Lockpick/Crafting/Your-Ability game mechanics. 5. Quality checks as in proofreading are fine... With opinions, I'm not going to say no, but I am going to say be careful; If someone says its good, I like x,y,z, then there's no problem. If someone says "Its good, but you should do this, or use this infobox/template", then we start to approach the danger zone depending on what you do with and how you handle the advice (depending on how detailed the idea is, and how much of your own spin you put on it). Hope this helps. Agent c (talk) 02:33, March 3, 2013 (UTC) Discussion 1 Re: Time limit. I've been working at this challenge like a mad man. Literally. It has the full support of my VA therapist ~;) * Since my retirement I've had difficulties dealing with civilian life. I was a soldier for 1/2 my life time.. Any way, despite my dedicated efforts, the physical & mental fallout from serving my county for nearly 28 years now require me to take all to frequent breaks and unfortunately far more medications than I'd like. The result is "slowed progress". I'm not looking for sympathy, I just mean to explain my situation. * You wrote Quote" If you anticipate any problems posting on time, please let me know ASAP, we do have a limited amount of flexibility available. "End Quote. So if there is some wiggle room on that dead line, I know I would sleep easier & I'm sure we could all use some time for final looks to insure all the "i"s are dotted & the "t's properly crossed. *In short, I believe all involved in this friendly competition might benefit by just a wee bit more time. SaintPain→ That was broke afore I got here." 22:06, March 17, 2013 (UTC) With Challenge 1; we have a red line. Wikia have a marketing push coming up, with the last day of that being the 28th... On this that I need to be able to have the judges remarks up, and the bottom 3 decided so the public vote can be opened, otherwise we miss a nice bit of promotion. Last year we ran into constant issues where iirc each Round at least 1 person was late, except for the last one. It meant a long delay at first, and some nailbiting close calls to keep schedule. Each day it's extended is one less day to judge, and a greater chance for delays to appear there. I'm trying to sort out the right balance. This year we did expand from two weeks to a longer period. I appreciate C1 hasn't been the full month as hoped, but at the moment in not aware of any further dates we need to piggyback on going forward - meaning At this stage, C2 looks like a full month, with each challenge aside from the last getting about the same. Final challenge with its massive scope will be 6-8 weeks, I'll negociate that with the final 2. For C1, if you are desperate, I can do 24-48 hours to account for technical hiccups, timezone issues, or personal issues. If you need to tap into that tell me as sure as you know you need it (but as soon as you're sure you'll need it) and give me an estimate of when it will be up. Bear in mind though I will only send C2 until all C1's are in. If you have some other issue that will take longer... Let me know anyway and I'll see what I can do. Equally, if you need early access (like if you're going away) for the next challenge, say so and it can be arranged. This lets me know if us judges should start on the judging for the others early. Agent c (talk) 22:32, March 17, 2013 (UTC) Challenge 2 ;Nb - Please avoid spoilers until the public reveal. If you havent recieved the challenge already, please contact me. Page Limits Firstly, I must say that I'm impressed with the amount of work people are willing to do. It really is amazing. However I'm thinking this is also a problem... Last year we had a target of a main page, and 1-2 supplimentary pages. Part of the motivation in moving to the longer format was to give entries more time to shine... so with that I'm hesitant to add or enforce a limit at this time as I want you to be as creative as you can... However I'm instead going to encourage you to think about the pages you include. ;Some questions to ponder *Does this page add to my entry, or does it perhaps risk overloading, or burying the points that do shine? *Does this page address the criteria of the challenge? *Would I do better with a smaller description included on another page? rather than a page for each character, for example, would in line description in a quest/location page, or a general character overview page work better? Always try and bring it back to the criteria... If its not directly working on those points, perhaps its not needed after all. Remember, the game is a marathon, not a sprint. Agent c (talk) 21:30, March 25, 2013 (UTC) Page limit '''response Hmm ? Some thing to think about... "My head hurts ~;P *It is hard to describe a whole quest line as it would appear in game & still try to follow our article format. I thought I was already pushing it to join the main quest walk through and the location page into one. I never followed last years challenge. I was afraid the fact I jammed quests and location in to one page would count against me. Now I don't know what to think.. I can only speak for my self, still, it appears to me that booth Bloodline & myself just meant to tell a multidimensional story "more than less" with in the Nukapedia page formats.. I honestly do not know what to think now. Writing in a free story style with article style pages only used as references would be far more easily done. I just don't know what exactly you want.. SaintPain→ That was broke afore I got here." 18:31, March 27, 2013 (UTC) :For your main page in this challenge, you should not emulate the typical article page style. Going freestyle is appropriate. Agent c (talk) 18:50, March 27, 2013 (UTC) :I think there is a minor misunderstanding here SaintPain. I believe Chad still wishes for ''most''' entries to be in an article like format. Just not to do a ''full article kind of. Or to put a few together. Take my finale article last year. I made a whole game in one article It may be a little messy, but I was able to get my point out and my ideas were understood. Or this entry for the last challenge SaintPain. I put a quest, a character and a weapon all together on one article and I feel it all worked well. I think Chad just wants you to take into account that yea, it is awesome to have a different article for every aspect, but sometimes that isn't always needed. --The Old World Relics (talk/blog/ ) 18:57, March 27, 2013 (UTC) OK I think I get that. So is this "pilot" Mini movie / story to be another original work or an expansion of what we have already done this month ? SaintPain→ '''That was broke afore I got here." 19:03, March 27, 2013 (UTC) :Basically, each challenge starts as a blank slate (unless the challenge says otherwise). If you wish to reuse something from a previous challenge, thats fine, but there is no requirement to do so. Agent c (talk) 19:32, March 27, 2013 (UTC) ::To double confirm. each challenge is designed to be standalone, as such you wont be expected to turn this into a script later on. C2 Q+A *Does it have to be family friendly? :Nope. Mature Themes expected (but not essential). *Does it have to follow a main quest :No. Obviously you have to have some sort of storyline, but anything Fallout related is acceptable. If you want to tell the story of a certain character or location, thats cool; if you want to do "The new adventures of Captain Cosmos (and Jangles the Space monkey), thats cool too. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Now ya tell me.. I already have a space monkey I could have rolled with this ~;P SaintPain→ '''That was broke afore I got here." 09:39, May 6, 2013 (UTC) When is the C2 eliminations / Will there be a challenge this month ? Last I heard the 28th of last month was the cut off. * who made the cut & or what will the next challenge be? SaintPain→ '''That was broke afore I got here." 09:54, May 6, 2013 (UTC) :Sorry, Mine and Frankie's are done. Just waiting for lizzunchbox...Agent c (talk) 10:53, May 6, 2013 (UTC)